Grab the Nearest Book...

[Dragonlady]

He sank to his knees and Lestat fed fast as the other slaves came running.


(Anne Rice Interview With A Vampire)

 

[Maid of Marvels]

Good pick. Though I'm not sure whether "Interview" has been banned or challenged, it seems likely.

Anne Rice's trilogy: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty's Punishment, and Beauty's Release (written under he pseudonym, A.N. Roquelaure) has been both challenged and banned several times. Those three books claim the distintion of being on "The Most Banned or Challenged List" from 1990 through 2003 -- and probably beyond.

Here's a snippet I found on the net:

April 28, 1996, the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch reported that following a complaint from a patron in the Columbus Metropolitan Library removed the trilogy of Rice's Sleeping Beauty books and their audio tapes after determining the books were pornographic. These same books were also removed from the Lake Lanier Regional Library system in Gwinnett County, Georgia, in 1992.

Read back for a quote from Lady Chatterley's Lover.

 

[Dragonlady]

Good pick. Though I'm not sure whether "Interview" has been banned or challenged, it seems likely.

Anne Rice's trilogy: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty's Punishment, and Beauty's Release (written under he pseudonym, A.N. Roquelaure) has been both challenged and banned several times. Those three books claim the distintion of being on "The Most Banned or Challenged List" from 1990 through 2003 -- and probably beyond.

Here's a snippet I found on the net:

April 28, 1996, the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch reported that following a complaint from a patron in the Columbus Metropolitan Library removed the trilogy of Rice's Sleeping Beauty books and their audio tapes after determining the books were pornographic. These same books were also removed from the Lake Lanier Regional Library system in Gwinnett County, Georgia, in 1992.

Read back for a quote from Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Sad really to bann a book from reading makes me want to read it more ... Kinda Reminds me of Hitler Burning Books

 

[Alaskkate]

His body convulsed in a death spasm.

(Warrior Witch of Hel by Asa Drake)

 

[Nibbles_n_Tits]

Brace yourselves...

its a big one - "The third chapter introduces us to collisions of peoples from different continents, by retelling through contemporary eyewitness accounts the most dramatic such encounter in history: the capture of the last independent Inca emperor, Atahuallpa, in the presence of his whole army, by Francisco Pizarro and his tiny band of conquistadors, at the Peruvian city of Cajamarca."

Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond

 

[Maid of Marvels]

Books have been challenged, banned and burned throughout history... Yes, here in the US and other places (like the UK) where we consider ourselves to be civilized and educated. LOL

Take a look at: Book Burning in the 21st Century Scary?

Furthermore, over 400 books have been challenged or banned between May of 2005 and 2006. Read Harry Potter? Not in some places. To Kill a Mockingbird? That one gets banned somewhere every year. It's not just books that might have erotic passages, you see. It's anything and everything that some group believes is detrimental in some way or another... Hey! Let's sit down and watch television or a flick, huh? Though many groups challenge that also, at least it's not a book that might make us think.

 

[wrytersyren]

My only question, is how can you ban "Blubber"?

 

[Maid of Marvels]

When I was taking a course in Children's Literature, there were a lot of books that weren't required by authors whose were. One of those authors was Maurice Sendak.

My final paper was based on censorship in children's literature. Remember that unmarried hussy with all the kids who lived in a shoe? Yes, she was on the list.

So off I went to the library in search of In the Night Kitchen by the aforementioned author. They had it, but it must have been out. I went to another branch. Same thing.

Okay, it's a cute book, BUT I didn't think it was that popular, so I went to the main branch and asked the librarian of the children's section if she would reserve it for me. "No need," she said. "I have it right... " She walked to a locked closet and opened it up. "Here."

It seemed there were several people who objected to the book and had already made off with several copies. In order to ensure that this wouldn't happen again, and rather than remove it from the library, they locked this book (and several others away). Some editions had just never been returned and probalby disposed of, others had been defaced.

How, you wonder and maybe even why? Mickey, when he jumps into the batter is... *whispers* nekkid!! The defacement was to draw clothes on with indelible marker, the rest well... I got a pristine edition to look at. Great story and the no clothes? I wouldn't wear pajamas into a bowl full of batter. Would you?

READ BANNED BOOKS. THEY'RE YOUR TICKET TO FREEDOM!!

 

[Donalddeutsch]

New one

And while it's true that he plays a loving family man to dental technician and wife Hope (Virginia Madsen) and there kids, the old Liotta makes his small screen debut about 30 minutes in, when he squashes an uppity inferior with a wolfish snarl charged with feral rage.

Publication: Entertainment Weekly #899 September 29, 2006
Article on Ray Liotta.

 

[brigid_fitch]

The spores caught fire and cascaded dramatically around the skull in a magnesium brilliance of light, in stark contrast to the dark night.

~~~~~~~~~~
Wow, had no idea I still had this on my bookshelf: Jean M. Auel, Clan of the Cave Bear

 

[Maid of Marvels]

28th page, 10th sentence

After all, no one but Ted could have comprehended and respected the eternity of her sorrow.

A Widow for One Year - John Irving

 

[brigid_fitch]

They had noticed the appearance of a new star in 1300 BC, had charted every arrival of Halley's Comet since 240 BC, and by 1054 were describing the supernovas of the Crab Nebula with their attendant pulsars, quasars, and neutron stars.

~From the book I'm currently reading: 1421--The Year China Discovered America, by Gavin Menzies.

 

[Blue_shoes1980]

A Cold Mind

"The ice in the glass shuddered and the passive expression Judith Croft had chosen to hide behind froze into a stupified blankness."

by David L. Lindsey

(It's just a stupid little suspense fiction, but the genre's been great 'homework' for the thread I'm writing in right now:
Angel of Lust)

Blue_

 

[Maid of Marvels]

Hi, Blue.

I just wanted to say that folks seem to think that it's not okay to read a book (or whatever) for "pleasure and enjoyment" or think that watching television has to be for some form of "enlightenment".

While I haven't watched television in quite a few years, I read something every day (often more than one book at a time). Silly or serious, I am feeding my own needs at the time with whatever I choose to pick up (including the cereal box).

Frankly, the title of your book alone has stirred my curiosity -- and imagination.

Keep on reading.

 

[chris2c4u]

She glanced at the prone form of the trucker and opened the door and got in.

(OK, so I cheated...a bit...sort of...)

The Tabard Chronicles, "Bible Belt" Literotica

 

[Maid of Marvels]

LOL I still say my best line ever was "Make it so" in a love scene with Thomas and Avelaine. Well, it would have been until you made me change it cause it was too Star Trekky for Paris in 1906.

 

[impish_pixie]

By contrast, Stephen, at least in the beginning of his reign, relied upon an aristocratic group centered around the Beaumont twins, Warren, count of Meulan, and Robert, earl of Leicester, but he was notorious for sudden coups against unsuspecting targets, arresting at his court the governmental dynasty of Roger, bishop of Salisbury, in 1139, Geoffrey de Mandeville in 1143, and the earl of Chester in 1145.

England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings
- Robert Bartlett

 

[brigid_fitch]

Hi, Blue.

I just wanted to say that folks seem to think that it's not okay to read a book (or whatever) for "pleasure and enjoyment" or think that watching television has to be for some form of "enlightenment".

While I haven't watched television in quite a few years, I read something every day (often more than one book at a time). Silly or serious, I am feeding my own needs at the time with whatever I choose to pick up (including the cereal box).

Maid, I completely agree. Although currently I'm reading a history novel, I just finished Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy (whch reads like kind of a cross between Narnia & Harry Potter). I'll go through phases--a few history novels, psychology textbooks, and then some "mind candy" like Dean Koontz or Terry Pratchett as a sorbet.

I'm rarely without a book, but when I am, I'll pick up the nearest thing to read. Even if it is the cereal box.

--Brigid

 

[Britwitch]

"She tried to force herself up, but Ponytail had her by the shoulders and head."

Lifeguard James Patterson & Andrew Gross

 

[chris2c4u]

It is, he claims, 'about the possibility of an unhead-of symbolic system, one altogether detached from our own.'

"Ideology and Bliss, Roland Barthes and the Secret Histories of Landscapes," J. Duncan and N. Duncan, in "Writing Worlds," ed. T. Barnes and J. Duncan.

 

[Maid of Marvels]

After the end of the war, in 1955, the United States Air Force decided to rebuild and expland the severely damaged facility to use as a base for jet fighters.

The Barbarians Speak: How the Conquered Peoples Shaped Roman Europe - Peter S. Wells

LOL Talk about disregard for the past! This was a late Iron Age site -- Manching (Bavaria, Germany) -- that revolutionized our understanding of prehistoric Europe. Jet fighters indeed.

By the way, for those who aren't aware, October is National Book Month here in the US.

READ!! READ!! READ!!

 

[Maid of Marvels]

opening paragraph

A boy with a parrot on his shoulder was walking along the railway tracks. His gait was dreamy and he swung a daisy as he went. With each step the boy dragged his toes in the rail bed, as if measuring out his journey with careful ruled marks of his shoetops in the gravel. It was midsummer, and there was something about the black hair and pale face of the boy against the green unfurling flag of the downs beyond, the rolling white eye of the daisy, the knobby knees in their short pants, the self-important air of the handsome gray parrot with its savage red tail feather, that charmed the old man as he watched them go by. Charmed him, or aroused his sense--a faculty at one time renowned throughout Europe--of promising anomaly.

The Final Solution: A Story of Detection - Michael Chabon

 

[Safefunguy]

first chapter, first paragraph+

On the 24th of February, 1815, the watch-tower of Notre-Dame de la Garfe signalled the arrival of the three masteder Pharaon, from Smyrna, Tieste, and Naples.

The usual crowd of curious spectators immediately filled the quay of Fort Saint-Jean, for at Marseilles, the arrival of a ship is always a great event, especially when that ship, as was the case with the Pharaon, has been built, rigged and laden in the dockyard of old Phocaea and belongs to a shipowner of their own town.

***
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

 

[Maid of Marvels]

The willpower of women, she thought.

Son of a Witch - Gregory Maguire

 

[chris2c4u]

Stroke them regularly and ensure that their fur is well groomed.

A Beginner's Guide to Gerbils